1495- French King Charles VIII with his invading army entered Naples in triumph. Charles was pushing his family claims to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples. The ease with which his forces brushed aside the armies of the Italian citystates proved how rich and defenseless Renaissance Italy had become. For the next few centuries Italy was the game board for armies from Germany, France, Austria, Turkey and Spain. Italian territory would not free of foreign control until 1918!

1732-GEORGE WASHINGTON born- Until 1969 Washington’s Birthday was a national holiday in the USA. Alexander Hamilton, called him "Talented but Dull". Thomas Paine's called him: "A compleate hippocryte". John Adams called him “Old Muttonhead” that he’d rather strike leadership poses than actually lead, But Thomas Jefferson called him the" Indispensable Man" who assured that this strange new system of peoples elected leader would not lapse into a dictatorship or royalty.

SO HERE’S TO a General who lost more battles than won them,
-Who donated much of his personal fortune to the Revolution, accepted no pay, yet ended the war with a profit;
-who had a whiskey still at Mt. Vernon, and grew hemp -for rope;
-Who had few close friends and hated people touching him;
-Who’s first real ambition was to be an officer in the British Army.
- Who much preferred conversation about methods of raising squash to discussing his military campaigns.
-Who never went to college.
- Who was turned down for a bank loan the day he was elected President.
-Who never used the word God or quoted the Bible in any of his letters or speeches,
- Who would drive Martha to Sunday Church, then wait outside in his carriage, smoking cigars.
- Who refused Last Rites at his deathbed...
And without whom the U.S. would not be the same. Happy Birthday GW!

1774- The English House of Lords announced that authors do not have a perpetual copyright on their works but it must be periodically renewed.

1775- The first IPO- the American Manufactuary of Woolins, Linens & Cottons became the first U.S. company to offer stock to the public- ten English pounds a share.

1782- After the news of the defeat at Yorktown Whig member of Parliament William Conroy stood up in the Commons and called for Britain to finally withdraw from America and recognize the independence of the United States.

1805- Birth in England of Sarah Flowers Adams, whose poetry is in the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.”

1821- As part of the Adams-Otis Treaty, Spain renounced her claims to Oregon.

1836- Texans defending the Alamo held a big fiesta in San Antonio to celebrate Washington’s Birthday. Dancing, tequila and corn whisky flowed. Davey Cockett played his fiddle. But the party was interrupted when scouts brought word that the first elements of General Santa Anna’s huge Mexican Army were coming, only 8 miles away.

1848- John Quincy Adams had a stroke on the floor of Congress and died shortly after. He was the son of John Adams and was one of the only U.S. presidents to go back to being a congressman after losing his re-election. I believe the only other was Andrew Johnson. Quincy Adams got his stroke speaking out on a bill to award Mexican War officers a ceremonial sword -he was anti-war.

1879- Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first Five & Ten Cent-store in Utica, New York.

1889- Montana, the Dakotas and Washington State admitted into the union.

1909- The White Fleet returned to Norfolk Virginia after circumnavigating the world. At a time when battleships were the nukes of international policy the US sending this fleet around was making the statement that the U.S planned to be a world player.

1911-The Kester Ranch in the San Fernando Valley becomes the town of Van Nuys, named for early settler Issac Newton Van Nuys.

1912-”MY HAT IS IN THE RING!” Teddy Roosevelt announced his intention to challenge for the Republican Presidential nomination against his own hand picked successor William Howard Taft. Roosevelt and Taft were once close friends but now Teddy called Taft a “Puzzlewit” and “Fathead”. The Taft -Roosevelt feud split the Republican Party and allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to defeat them both.
Roosevelt also split the progressive left wing off the Republicans that completed the process began in the Gilded Age of turning the radical party of Lincoln into America’s Tory conservatives. When Theodore Roosevelt was buried in 1919 the last mourner to linger weeping over his grave was William Howard Taft.

1913- Mexican President Francisco Madero assassinated by General Huerta who seized power. The gentle Madero- his enemies called him "the Christ-Fool", was elected after the long time dictator Porfilio Diaz was finally turned out. His assassination caused a new wave of revolutionary civil war waged by Pancho Villa, Emilio Zapata and Miguel Carranza. President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize the Huerta government and by doing so only fueled anti-American sentiment.

1924- President Coolidge becomes first president to address the nation over the radio.

1941- Nazis begin arresting the Jews of Amsterdam.

1945- The Arab League is formed in Cairo.

1946- Dr. Selman Abraham created Streptomycin, the first antibiotic drug.

1946- THE KENNAN REPORT- U. S. charges des affaires in Moscow George Kennan sent a long telegram to Washington in which he analyzed Soviet foreign policy. "Soviet Power is impervious to the logic of Reason, but responds to Force, and when confronted by sufficient force and determination it usually backs down." Kennan's report created the US strategic policy to confront global Communism with direct force. It gave philosophical justification to the client wars in Greece, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam, as well as the support of Spain’s Franco, Indonesia’s Suharto, Pinochet’s Chile and Iran’s Shah Reza Pahlevi because of their anti-Communist stances.

1965- General William Westmoreland asks for two marine battalions to protect the DaNang airbase. First U.S. troops sent to Vietnam not as advisers but as combat units.

1967- General Suharto assumed power in Indonesia after crushing a communist insurgency threatening his predecessor Sukarno.

1979- Happy Saint Lucia Independence Day!

1980- Underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated Soviet team 4-3 for the gold medal. The summer games in Moscow were boycotted, not the winter. The two teams did not meet again until the 2002 games in Utah where they skated to a 2-2 tie.

2009- Slumdog Millionaire won best picture and best cinematography at the 81st Academy Awards. The first movie shot completely digital, with no film used.

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Yesterday’s question below: In Walter Scotts novel Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe fights to free the imprisoned King of England. Which one?